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Bowling Ball Rocket Perseverance pays off. After 8 official build sessions and a lot of unofficial construction time, it all came together Sunday June 10, 2007. The bowling ball flew at RocStock ! For those who don't know, the TRG members decided to build an entry for the H-Lite-Duration, Bowling Ball Loft contest held annually at the LDRS launch. Several of the TRG members and advisors have completed that entry and completed a demonstration launch at ROCStock to test out the system and tune the flight plan in preparation for the July 13 contest flight. The rocket was designed and constructed by the members. The "Ball" flew from a custom-build tube launcher, purpose built specifically for this project. Check out the photos below. Excellent job. Thanks to everyone on the build team (Bryan, Nathan, Patrick, Johnathan, and Kevin). And thanks to Richard for putting together the incredible NASA- class launcher! (Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version) |
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Patrick and Bryan pose with an early mockup of the booster for the bowling ball rocket in early May, while Richard works on the tube launcher in the background. | ||||||||||||||||
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Bowling Ball Rocket build team, June 2, 2007. Left to right, Kevin, Patrick, Bryan, Nathan. | ||||||||||||||||
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Kevin King puts a final sanding on the Rocket Shroud | ||||||||||||||||
| An artist at work. |  
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Bryan and Patrick with the finished rocket body. Rumor has it that Bryan put over 20 different colors of spray paint to get the cool color effects. I'm guessing it's no exaggeration. Great Job, Bryan. | ||||||||||||||||
| Kevin and Patrick lay out the stenciling for the Tube Launcher. |  
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The TRG Build Team preparing to setup the launcher June 10, 2007. | ||||||||||||||||
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We marched the tube launcher out to the away cells for setup. | ||||||||||||||||
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The dry lake at Iwo Jima! | ||||||||||||||||
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Tube Launcher Setup
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| Parachute Packing. Two 'chutes were packed: 50" orange for the rocket body and a 96" green for the ball. |     
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| Approval and advice from the Range Safety Officer. He's John Van Norman of Myth Busters fame. |   
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| Motor Preparation. For you rocket folks, Bryan is preparing an Aerotech H999 Warp-9 reloadable motor, with an Aerotech Electronic Forward Closure. Say that 3 times fast! |   
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| We did a little modification at the pad. | 
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| All the hard
work came together at about 11:30am on June 10,2007.
Note: These photos were purchased from Rockets Magazine. Thanks. Please check out many other photos of ROCStock on their website. |
 
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| The following photos are self explanatory. They show setup and launch prep at the LDRS-26 National Launch in Jean, Nevada, July 2007. | |||||||||||||||||
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This is the
moment of ignition. The rocket was launched from a 12' tall tube
launcher, with the bottom end sealed. Essentially, the ball end of
the rocket acted as a piston. The rocket
exhaust pressurized the interior of the tube and helped to push the rocket
upward with much greater force than thrust alone. Of course, we also
put about 225 pounds of thrust under that bowling ball for about 1/3
second to give it energy to fly. If you look closely, you can see the ball just emerging from the top of the tube. Also note the flames breaking through the sealed seams in the launcher. |
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The "Up Part" was most excellent indeed. This is the liftoff of "Strike's" 2nd flight. Although we didn't fly the altimeter on this flight, it appeared to achieve 600-700 feet or more, visually higher than the other contestants (according to independent reports). | ||||||||||||||||
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Unfortunately,
we had another "anomoly" at apogee.. We got a successful ejection. It's just that the motor ejected
instead of the ball! We left a crater in the lakebed in the shape
of a bowling ball.
I don't REALLY think that a Friday the 13th launch was to blame... but.... At least everyone had fun and everyone involved with the TRG should be very proud of the Bowling Ball Team. |
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Goodbye old friend. :-) | ||||||||||||||||
